‘Papa is dead’: When Priyanka told Sonia about Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination | Political Pulse News
In her candid memoir, senior Congress leader and former UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has opened up about what is among the most private and painful chapters of her life: the assassination of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991.
Gandhi recounted in detail the moments before she got the news. “It had been a few days since Priyanka and I returned from campaigning for Rajiv’s election, but the fatigue hadn’t left me. I had missed seeing him in Rae Bareli and had barely had a day with him in Delhi before he left again. Priyanka had stayed back for a few days and her account of meeting him in Rae Bareli on May 10 was playing on my mind. She said she was shocked to see how exhausted her father was; he’d been campaigning non-stop for days and days on end, and through the whole country,” she wrote.
“I lay down on his side of the bed; it gave me a sense of comfort whenever he was away. The bedside table lamp threw long shadows on the bedroom walls. I opened a book and began to read. Priyanka had knocked on my door a few times already. She was getting dressed to go to a friend’s twenty-first birthday party. She was unused to going out, unlike most teenagers her age, and kept trying on different outfits and asking my opinion. Every time she opened my bedroom door, the sound of music playing in her room at the opposite end of the corridor would waft into mine. Then the music went off, and I thought she’d finally made up her mind about what to wear and was headed out. Suddenly I heard footsteps running down the corridor towards my room. No one else was in the house; it could only have been her. I thought I heard her stumbling, then the footsteps stopped abruptly at my door. I shut my book and listened, feeling uneasy,” she added.
Sonia Gandhi has recounted the conversation between her and Priyanka when they got the news
“When the door opened, she entered slowly, her steps deliberate. She seemed to be stilling herself, moving with forced calm as she walked up to me. But her breath was fast and shallow, the colour had drained from her face, and her eyes were darker than I had ever seen them before,” Gandhi wrote.
She then wrote what Priyanka told her: “I just got a call. There’s been a bomb explosion. They are saying that twelve people around Papa are dead, but he is okay. It can’t be possible. If twelve people have died, he must be injured, he must be in hospital. We’ll have to go to Madras, Mama. Start getting dressed.”
Gandhi wrote she couldn’t understand what Priyanka was saying. “…she was speaking fast, and nothing was making sense. Why Madras? Was Rajiv in Madras? What bomb? It was less her words than the dread in Priyanka’s voice that froze me into realising what she really meant. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up, she stepped forward and held me in her arms. I could feel her heart thumping wildly against my chest.”
Priyanka, her mother wrote, told her, “I’m going to the office to check. Mr. George said he would find out, but he hasn’t called back, and he isn’t picking up the phone.” “Mr George” here refers to Vincent George, Rajiv Gandhi’s personal secretary who later worked with Sonia Gandhi too. Priyanka returned a while later, Gandhi wrote. “…and, when she did, I saw a finality in her expression that I instantly recognised. She stood in front of me in the half-lit room. ‘Papa is dead,’ she said. I looked into her eyes, desperately hoping this was a nightmare from which I would awake. She looked back at me, her gaze piercing mine, mirroring my horror,” she added.
‘It is true, Sahab is no more’
“I crumpled in my daughter’s arms. ‘I should have gone with him,’ I cried out, again and again. ‘Why didn’t I go with him?’ She said nothing. Disbelieving, clinging to hope, I dialled Mr. George myself. ‘Just tell me, is it true?’ His voice faltered. ‘Yes – it is true, Sahab is no more.’ I felt as if my world had gone dark, and that darkness had swallowed me whole,” Gandhi wrote.
“Priyanka sat me down and held me tightly as I cried inconsolably. My Rajiv was dead. He was gone. I would never see his beautiful face again, I would never feel him holding me, I would never again know the safety of his embrace. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to live without him,” she added.
Gandhi also wrote about her urge to see Rajiv’s body. “…I felt a strong urge to see Rajiv. I had to see him. I was restrained again and again. ‘Not now, not now. Be patient, a little while more.’ I remembered—yes, I was sure— Rajiv had donated his eyes. His mother had, too, but at that tragic time we didn’t remember. Now I had to see him, no more excuses. I had to tell someone his wishes. I thought of our family physician, who was always with us at times of crisis. ‘Is Dr. Mathur here?’ I asked. “I need to speak to him urgently, right now—it’s important.” The doctor’s bitter response — ‘Aankhen? Arre kya baat karte bo, kuchb nabin bacha bai, kucch nabin!’ (‘Eyes? What are you talking about? There’s nothing left, nothing!’- dealt me a blow that made me sick to the stomach, it made me want to throw up. I couldn’t breathe… Priyanka took hold of me. The lacerating force of that graphic reply had brought home to me the brutality of the death of my beloved.”
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a suicide bomb attack by a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in retaliation for his decision to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka. He was assassinated in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur, where he was campaigning for a Congress candidate ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
